Why Hamas crushed a rival jihadist group — as I said here, “Hamas can now tell gullible Western officials that it is fighting against ‘extremism’!”
“Jihadi Public Relations,” by Walid Phares in Human Events, August 18 (thanks to JRH):
How far will terrorists go to cloak themselves in legitimacy? Last week’s action in the Gaza Strip, now governed by the terrorist network Hamas, is a good example.
Hamas” attack against the Jund Ansar Allah (JAA, “The Soldiers or the Partisans of Allah”), a Jihadist group inside Gaza, was intended to provide the Palestinian Islamist organization a pass to become a “mainstream” movement, acceptable internationally as a partner in peace negotiations with Israel. […]
By now, the “Jund” has been crushed, its Mosque seized and its survivors pursued.
But what are lessons we need to learn from this pool of piranhas, where big Jihadi fish eat little Jihadi fish?
1. According to many commentators on al Jazeera, Hamas chose to finish up the “Jund” as a maneuver to lure the West in general — Great Britain and the United States in particular — into “engaging” the organization, lifting its name from terror lists and adding it to the peace process between the Palestinians and Israel. Hamas spokespersons rushed to say “we too are fighting the extremists, the terrorists as you are fighting them and pursuing al Qaeda,” which resonates greatly in Western ears, especially with the Obama administration and the Brown government: Soon enough sympathizing journalists, apologist academics and even diplomats and envoys will be citing the “glorious” deeds of Hamas as evidence of fight “against terrorism.”
The U.S. narrative lately has been underlining that there is no war against “Global Jihadsim” but a “war against al Qaeda” only. So those in the business of Jihad, including Hamas, Hezbollah, and a plethora of other groups, can make their credential known to the West by slapping some local, little al Qaeda boys, and claiming a green card to the world of “accepted Jihadists.”…